this is the name of a documentary i saw at the cinema last sunday. basically its about 'ozploitation' cinema in the 70s and 80s.
background: basically, two things shaped aussie genre cinema in the 70s. first of all, the lifting of censorship. second, very generous tax concessions to producers.
the doco: divided into three parts. first, the T & A stuff. lotsa smut from oz in the 70s. this seemed to hold my attention
australia seemed to get more liberal than most countries at that time. full frontal nudity on television for instance. lovely, lovely curvy girls. hip swingers, these pioneers!
second, horror. some
gore effects. lots of gore in the best tradition of B grade italian movies. in fact, some of ours were ripped off by italians! tarantino is a fan naturally. he even incorporated a bit of the movie 'patrick' into kill bill.
third, cars and the like. aussies had no idea about safety standards etc. high speed chases were done on unsupervised highways. live ammo was fired at actors! very dangerous stuff. makes the stunts a little more convincing (",) . the maddest of the stuntmen is grant page. on the first day of shooting for mad max, for instance, he crashed his motorbike on the way to the set. broke his leg. he did most of the mad max stunts with his leg in plaster! in the movie 'stone' he rode a motorbike off a 80 high cliff into the sea and was knocked unconscious. incidentally, i used to work with a guy who did some stunts in mad max. he drove that car with the cow hide body (",)
if 'king of kong' were to get an oscar for most entertaining doco (and it should) then 'not quite holywood' should get one for most factual. this is a true documentary in that if someone says 'he ended up punching him in the face he was so angry' then they also ask give that guys reply 'i dont remember doing that'.
i wanted to write a glowing review about this, but somehow after the T & A part, i found it a bit long. maybe they should have put the T & A last for titillation (geddit!). so i found it a bit long. on the plus side, there were plenty of really interesting interviews with aussie directors and actors from back then. also, some great stuff from the down and out foreign actors that came here for a cash fix- dennis hopper, jamie lee curtis, stacey keach and the ex pats rod taylor and george lazenby.
it has inspired me to look at more of australias cinema heritage. ive seen a few of the more well known ones of course. 'cars that ate paris', 'razorback', 'mad max' (who here hasnt seen mad max?), 'stone'. but i think i should savour some of the bawdier ones, well known here, like 'the adventures of barry mackenzie' and 'alvin purple'.
i give it 3 cans of VB out of 5. if you arent australian, maybe dont see it at the movies, but if you happen to notice it on cable, check it out.
quotes:
quentin tarrantino: aussies have this way of filming cars with a fetishistic lense that just makes you want to jerk off
dame edna everidge: lesbianism has always left a nasty taste in my mouth...
Oh, if you were to see only one ozploitation movie, see 'stone'. its about a biker (bikie, in oz) gang. they ride kawasaki Z900's. all the actors had one and rode them every day to get into the spirit of it. they even had help from the hells angels which is funny because you get to see the angels get beat up by jap bike riders! there was a scene where some of the guys were getting stoned. so they really got stoned. it took 25 hours to shoot! film is expensive, this is why they almost never really get stoned in movies, no matter what they might say
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Topic: not quite hollywood (Read 2210 times)
